In a newspaper two years before the war had even begun, the founder of an Serbian extremist group called the black hand says that the only way for Serbia to gain freedom and honor is threw war (Document 3). The newspaper states “This war must bring out the eternal freedom of Serbia.” Not only did Serbia want freedom from Austria-Hungary but hornor as well. Thinking that the war was the only way to gain the freedom and honor they wanted, Serbia looked to their only option for a band of extremists to kill the prince of Austria-Hungary. This is a extremely significant part of why World War I started because of an assassination of a leader in Austria-Hungary country.
On August 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia, because Russia began to force strikes on Germany. Germany tried to invade Belgium, but were stopped in their tracks, because Great Britain sided with France to stop Germany from crossing the French
The Triple Entente banded together and all blamed Germany for starting the war. According to Document B, France, Great Britain, and Russia were all pointing the finger at Germany, blaming them for starting the war. Due to the alliance's, most of the European countries became involved, not just Austria and Serbia. As stated by Document B, Germany was standing in front of Austria trying to help defend them, however, that then gave the other European countries another reason to accuse Germany for the start of World War I. Each alliance managed to stay together with defending each other throughout the massive
Austria-Hungary then blamed Russia as the person that killed the ArchDuke and his wife was a Russian person. The Russian government was fully responsible for the killing of the ArchDuke and his wife however, there was a reason behind it. The reason why Russia did this was because Russia wanted to provoke Austria-Hungary into declaring war against Serbia, which Austria-Hungary ended up doing. As soon as Germany gave Austria-Hungary the “blank check”, Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia, which was a big mistake in the long run as this war triggered World War I to occur. In the excerpt, “The Century of Total War '' by Raymond Aron, he states that these two alliances that Austria-Hungary and Russia were in were alarmed, resulting in them fighting back, which came with more heavy incidents (wars) to occur later in the future.
After Serbia appealed to Russia for help, the czar’s government began moving towards mobilization of its army, believing that Germany was using the crisis as an excuse to launch a preventive war in the Balkans. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28. On August 1, after hearing news of Russia’s general mobilization, Germany declared war on Russia. The German army then launched its attack on Russia’s ally, France, through Belgium, violating Belgian neutrality and bringing Great Britain into the war as well.
From 1871 to 1914, several factors led to war in Europe; nationalism, imperialism, militarism, anarchy, and the alliance system that allowed a chain reaction to take place. Just as WW1 began, America was in a business recession, but the war, along with american trade with the Allies a Wall street financing of the war by JP Morgan which pulled the U.S out of it. When Britain intercepted the Zimmerman Note, which sought to entice Mexico into a military alliance with Germany in return to the American Southwest, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war. American involvement in the war is mentioned so briefly because it came at the end of the war, and Americans suffered relatively few casualties, compared to the European powers. World War
Additionally, Germany did not account for a response from Great Britain. Germany did not have the logisitical flexibility to address the entrance of these actors into their plan. The German Economy was not strong enough to support the extensiveness of the plan. The biggest implication of the plan is that in its adoption “Germany encouraged the newly emerged system of competing associates and guaranteed that a war between any two states would embroil them” (Kagan, 167), and that the need to fight two fronts and the invasion of Belgium, German mobilization would guarantee a European
The war could’ve just been a spat between Austria-Hungary and Serbia if Russia hadn’t been so eager to protect the other countries, like Serbia, they had an ethnic tie with. Although there are many possible reasons for the war, militarism, imperialism, and alliances are the main three with alliances being the most main reason. Militarism and imperialism riled up the countries, making them angry and afraid, but alliances really pushed the countries over the edge into the war. It all just piled up into one big, bad heap of hatred that spurred the countries
The third reason why Germany caused World War 1 is because Germany had the opportunity to start a war that would gain them land. Germany was an industrial powerhouse, and once again Document C shows that Germany had the most money to spend on armies and navies. With Germany spending approximately 115 million British pounds, exceeding Russia 's 90 million British points spent on armaments, it can be inferred that Germany took this opportunity to start a war. Germany knew that a war would help them gain land and remove their burden. Using Austria-Hungary 's war, Germany definitely had the opportunity to side with Austria-Hungary and obtain Russia to relieve their burden.
They wanted war and with the urging of Germany they were going for it. “Thereafter, Dr. Naumann discussed the general political situation, dwelling on the great uneasiness felt in Berlin over Russian armaments and the test mobilization, recently fixed for the autumn, of considerable Russian forces.” [Doc 3: Hoyos’ Conversation with Victor Naumann, Vienna, 1 July, 1914] Germany had their own goals and reasoning behind a war with Serbia, Russia’s ally. Germany and Serbia had looked at all it options and felt it was a prime time to initiate a war. The powers of Europe were poised for conflict; Europe was divided into two armed camps by two rival alliances.
Because of alliances, Russia came to aid Serbia and that led Germany to declare war on Russia. Eventually the other countries with alliances joined
All the alliances were already preparing themselves for a massive war to take over eventually. Serbia, being in an alliance with Russia, was the first to challenge Austria. Serbia wanted to become their own country and not depend on another country but, Austria was not about to let that go easily. Serbia eventually grew this hate between the people of Austria and likewise with the Austrian people. Hate is what ultimately lead to the assassination and what became the beginning of the Great
I: Germany waged World War I in 1914 due to their increasing fear of the rise of Russia. Russia had a much greater potential power than Germany due to their sizeable land mass and increasingly industrialized economy. While Germany was widely regarded as the predominant military state in Europe, by 1917, Russia would overtake them. Russia’s future intentions were unclear, and Germany preferred major war instead of a dominant state of immense size and power.
Then, when Austria declared war on Serbia, Russia declared war on Austria as Russia had a contract with Serbia that they would
It can be argued that the willingness of Austria-Hungary, the incapability of the authorities, and the tension and pressure regarding militarism and imperialism in Europe are factors that led Germany to make the decisions that it has. One historian Strachan claims that (2001), "What it seems fairly clear that Germany did not want was war" (p.15). His argument was that in 1905, the German military had no plans for war. It's position within the international community was much more favorable then than at 1914; thus, the way the events unfolded were unintentional on Germany's part. While I do not agree entirely that their actions were 'unintentional', I do believe that the negligence of the German authorities in which they did not consider the possibilities and consequences of a world war, and the incapability of them not being able to find a better solution as the situation grew worse contributed to the war.
